Chicago's Lake Shore Drive is barren of its usual vehicle traffic, Monday, March 23, 2020. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

This article was originally posted on Edwin’s Substack newsletter on March 15.

MAGA is just plain crazy. The delusion runs so deep that Sean Hannity and Elise Stefanik can count on this crowd to believe we were better off four years ago. We were not. Mr. Trump’s disastrous leadership did lasting damage.

Four years ago, airports like the Chicago’s busy O’Hare Airport looked like this:

And baseball was played in empty stadiums. Here’s what it was like outside Wrigley Field.

Here’s the so-called Magnificent Mile early in the pandemic.

And here’s LaSalle Street, the center of the Chicago’s business district.

All these photos are mine. I spent much of the pandemic walking around Chicago to see how the city was coping. And I thought then that this global challenge was an opportunity for us to come together and act in unison both to bring it to an end, and to build a stronger world on the other side.

But President Donald Trump had another plan. He saw in COVID a threat to his power, and he decided his best strategy was to use it to further divide us. He threw science under the bus and told us to take the horse dewormer ivermectin. He hosted super spreader events at the White House. He mocked COVID patients, and he joked that he hoped COVID would kill his national security advisor. Over a million Americans died. Unforgivably, Mr. Trump sowed doubt about public health measures and about vaccines — doubt that puts Americans in danger even today.

The pandemic was going to be hard. But every country goes through hard times. Leaders pull us together and give us both direction and hope. Not Mr. Trump. He gave us lies and excuses. He turned a public health crisis into a culture war. The result was chaos and sadness beyond measure.

On his watch, too many Americans lost their loved ones, and could not even hold their hands and say goodbye.

Chicago Sun-Times front page from March 30, 2020

In his four years as president, Mr. Trump never once sought to be my president, or to reach out in any way to Americans not already in his camp. He has a record. It is a record of selfishness, incompetence and jealousy. It is a record of using government to divide us, to enrich himself and to strengthen the MAGA movement.

We have rebuilt America after the devastation of the Trump years. Those airports and streets and ballparks are full once more. Our economy is, once again, the envy of the world. Many of us have embraced a new future, one where everyone is included, and all are respected.

We will not go back.

Edwin Eisendrath hosts “The Big Picture” on WCPT 820 AM every Saturday at 1 p.m. CST. You can follow him on X @eisendrath.